Giant Chocolate-Toffee Cookies.

Right off the bat, this post is lying to you. Because, dear readers, these cookies are not giant. What happened, quite unfortunately if you opened up this page with the hopes of reading about and in approximately two hours consuming said Giant Chocolate-Toffee Cookies, is that about two giant scoops of cookie dough in, I realized that not only did I not want 18 Giant Chocolate-Toffee Cookies, but what I really want was 32 smaller cookies and a glass of milk. That and after about one and a half giant globs of cookie dough in, I realized each cookie, BB—before baking—weighed approximately 1.2 pounds each.*

So where does that leave the recipe and perhaps more importantly, the Giant Chocolate-Toffee Cookies? Well, the result is 32 cookies somewhere between medium and large, with just enough surface area to contain both a chewy, slightly crispy rim and a dense, brownie like center. Add in the nubs of toffee and toasted pecan and what you’ve got is a brownie in cookie form, complete with the hallmark of all Good Brownies- the dry-cracked, delicate cocoa-rich top. These cookies beg for a glass of milk, they’re absolutely begging for a little dip in the tall-drink variety of a milky pool.

Why keep the name? Say it out loud: Giant Chocolate-Toffee Cookies. Now try: Medium-sized Chocolate Toffee Cookies. More than just a mouthful, and pretty much a letdown, an anti-climactic title for such a devilishly luscious cookie. And while these smaller cookies adhere to the don’t-eat-anything-bigger-than-your-head rule—a rule one should pay close attention to when trying to avoid the cemented-stomach, burrito-blockage type of feeling—it’s still nice to recall that these more midgeted cookies had larger, more aspirational origins. They’ve simply evolved to a more streamlined, efficient point. These chocolate-toffee cookies are so close to perfection in fact, that if you dare, you could, say, sandwich them together with a little chocolate ganache and still avoid the requisite couch-break after consuming just a morsel too much. And if these cookies prove so delicious that you eat not two, but three or four, chances are you won’t collapse and have to be excused for overambitious chocolate consumption. Granted, you’ll most likely have chocolate gumming up your teeth, but you’ll be functional. Always a good thing.

So travel off to cookie land, but take into account that with cookies on the slightly smaller end of the spectrum, not only will the end result be approximately 1.5 times more numerous, but you can actually eat more cookies than if you had simply one Giant Cookie. The only downside of which, perhaps, is that the more cookies you have, the less likely your fellow cookie consumers will feel guilty asking if they too could, please please, have a cookie and a glass of milk. A good way to get out of this is, of course, to say the milk’s all gone whilst blocking the fridge door.